TWENTY-FIVE #2
I clutched his shoulder. “Oh my God, how much did you win?” I scanned the top of the machine for the payouts. “It says three diamonds is…five thousand nickels. Wait… That’s…”
“Two hundred and fifty bucks,” Jonah said, standing up, his hands on his head.
“You hit the jackpot,” I said, throwing my arms around his neck.
He looked down at me, his hands slowly coming down. The slot machine lights reflected red, blue and green in his eyes. The chime of falling coins dwindled away in my ears. The entire casino faded to the background.
“I did,” he whispered. His hands took my face and he kissed me.
I froze as his lips covered mine, then I melted against him.
His warm, soft mouth stole the strength from my legs, and I staggered back.
He followed, pressing me up against the bank of slots, nickels sliding under our feet.
A small moan escaped me, an unconscious sound of want rising from deep inside.
I hadn’t known how badly I wanted this until it was happening.
Jonah brushed his lips over mine and then moved in closer, pressed harder.
My lips parted for his, and I moaned again at the first taste of his tongue sliding against mine—sweetness and a tinge of spicy heat from our dinner.
I wanted more, but he retreated to kiss my lips, sucking lightly, exploring everywhere, before coming back to plunge deeper.
My hands found their way into his soft, thick hair. I pulled lightly, pulled him closer to me, opened my mouth wider to take all of his kiss. His body pressed all up and down mine, and I wanted him on my skin and in my veins.
This. This… All along it’s been this.
Jonah groaned softly, his hands roamed over every inch of skin available to him: my neck, my shoulder, my face. God, the way he held my face, cupped my chin in his hands… He kissed me as if I were something delicate and precious, something he cherished and held with reverence.
My first kiss. This is my first real kiss.
The clatter of nickels trickled to a stop. Jonah’s lips brushed mine once more before he pulled away. He opened his eyes.
And my heart broke.
“Kace,” he whispered, his face full of pain. “Oh damn, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Every good and beautiful feeling from our kiss was wrenched out of me. “Jonah…”
“I can’t do this to you. Or myself.”
I clung to him, pulling on his hands, still out of breath. “What are you talking—”
“Is this your machine?” came a screeching voice from behind him.
Jonah dropped my hands and turned around. An old lady in polyester and a perm peered at the yellow light flashing on the top of our machine.
“They’ll come by to fill it back up,” she said. “You going to take your money or not?”
“We got it, thanks.”
Jonah busied himself with scooping nickels into the plastic pails.
I helped, and every time our hands touched, desire crackled up my arms. I wanted him.
Wanted his hands on me, his mouth on mine, his body inside me.
But Jonah wouldn’t look at me and his mouth was pressed in a thin line, as if he were trying not to breathe.
My feelings churned in me like a maelstrom of hurt and humiliation and confusion. I had just begun to taste something good and perfect and then it was torn away.
We changed the five thousand nickels for $250. Jonah tried to press some of the bills into my hand. “Take it. Or at least half. They were your nickels to start.”
“It was your jackpot.”
I was your jackpot.
He shook his head, mute and struggling. The misery exuding from him was like a thousand little arrows to my heart.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, tugging his arm. “Out of the smoke.”
“Yeah,” he said with a bitter smile. “It’s not good for my heart. Everything I do is for the good of my stupid fucking heart.”
We left the casino and walked in silence, back along the Strip’s busy sidewalks to his parked truck. The drive to my apartment was silent. In the parking lot, he left the engine idling and clenched his truck’s steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles had gone white.
“I’m such an asshole,” he said finally. He turned to look at me for the first time since we left the MGM Grand, and his eyes were heavy and exhausted. “Kace, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was wrong and stupid, and I’m sorry. We’re friends. We have to stay friends. I just got caught up in the moment, and you looked…so beautiful.”
“Jonah…” I reached for him, but he flinched away.
“Please, don’t. I’ve fucked up enough for one night. My will power is hanging by a goddamn thread.”
A short silence descended in which I heard only my own heartbeat, thudding hard against my chest. I reached again and pried his hand from the wheel. His medic alert bracelet glinted in the streetlight.
“You don’t have to be sorry. Don’t apologize. That kiss was beautiful. Didn’t you feel it? It felt right and perfect, and it means something. Jonah…”
“God, Kace,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “You should go. Please. Just go.”
“I don’t want to,” I said, my own voice cracking.
“I don’t want to waste another minute. I was away from you for twelve days when I quit the band.
Twelve days I’ll never get back.” Tears streamed down my cheeks freely now.
“Listen to me. I’m more afraid of not being with you than I am of being with you.
Or of what might happen four months from now. ”
Jonah’s hand gripped mine tight, and his own eyes shone.
“Four months,” he said, shaking his head.
“Do you know why I keep my damn schedule? Why I keep my head down and work every day to get the installation ready for the opening? It’s not just to finish the work.
It’s because when I do only that, I keep time as an abstract idea.
Instead of a linear stretch of days it’s…
a sphere. A glass sphere in which I work, visit my family, have drinks with friends, over and over, round and round.
Each week no different from the next. That’s how I hold time still. ”
Tears splattered my skirt. “And now I’ve messed it all up?”
He shook his head, his eyes brimming, his voice hoarse and tremulous at the edges.
“No. You’ve been a brilliant light in my drab, dark world.
But if you let me kiss you again… If we start something right now, time won’t stand still.
The end, my end, won’t be some nebulous thing off in the distance. It’ll race toward me, because…”
His voice choked off, and I held his hand tighter, our tears falling together.
“Because why?” I whispered.
“Because, Kace, the days will count down until there’s only one left,” he said through gritted teeth. “The one where I have to say goodbye to you.”
The words pummeled my heart, cracked and broke it.
It’s real. Like Lola said. I can’t pretend this away.
Jonah heaved a breath and turned away, wiping his cheek on the sleeve of his shirt.
“It’ll be hard enough as friends,” he said, his voice full of gravel.
“It’ll be so much worse if we try to have more.
If we make love. If we fall…” He shook his head, frustration coloring his agonized expression now.
“Jonah…”
“It’s late. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
I couldn’t take the cold finality in his tone. I nodded mutely and reached for the door. “All right. Thanks for dinner and my first time in a casino…”
And my first kiss.
Jonah reached across the seat to take my hand again. He held it tightly, pressed my fingers to his lips, and then let me go.